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Starfighter, Summer 2015

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Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#101

Post by dragons »

akavel wrote: post #69

Hmmm, personally, I have rather mixed feelings about this. I'd really like to be excited, but so far, I'm not. (And, on a somewhat tangential note, also I'm fairly surprised not to see any voices similar to mine here in the comments; am I the only one? hard to believe; or maybe others like me just shrug and don't bother to write? sounds more probable, to me at least.) I tried to analyze my thoughts on that; I'll try…

for now it sounds like it requires some "grinding", and for me that sounds like wasted time

I haven't seen enough info, either, but I got the same feeling. When I first read about Starfighter I thought "neat, maybe this is a way to avoid the obnoxious typical interview process by demonstrating what I can do with some kind of ranking system." The Starfighter site implies this "Starfighter is not here to fix the job interview. We're here to destroy it, and replace it with something better" http://starfighters.io/

From reading the OP, now it sounds like a way to filter out a few diamonds-in-the-rough in a very specialized area. The system may teach you something, but the people who will shine and rise to the top will (I think) have some natural talent that makes them stand out. What will the vast majority of players get from participating? And how many hours of time do you have to devote to this simulation before you get introduced to a company (if that even happens)?

Well, maybe I'm not the target market because I'd rather spend my free time building my own business than playing a game. I'm currently doing that. But if my business doesn't work out, and I need to go back to work at some point, I don't see this system helping me. I have no idea how much time it would take, and what the possible reward would be. I hope these questions will be answered eventually.

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#102

Post by tptacek »

dragons wrote: post #101
akavel wrote: post #69

Hmmm, personally, I have rather mixed feelings about this. I'd really like to be excited, but so far, I'm not. (And, on a somewhat tangential note, also I'm fairly surprised not to see any voices similar to mine here in the comments; am I the only one? hard to believe; or maybe others like me just shrug and don't bother to write? sounds more probable, to me at least.) I tried to analyze my thoughts on that; I'll try…

for now it sounds like it requires some "grinding", and for me that sounds like wasted time I haven't seen enough info, either, but I got the same feeling. When I first read about Starfighter I thought "neat, maybe this is a way to avoid the obnoxious typical interview process by demonstrating what I can do with some kind of ranking system." The Starfighter site implies this "Starfighter is not here to fix the job in…

Since we're counting on lots of people who aren't in the job market to participate, if people get nothing out of Starfighter other than referrals to jobs, we're doing something very wrong.

The first Starfighter CTF is first and foremost a labor of love. I know the hiring angle dominates discussion of the concept, but I can't say this any more clearly: we are sinking all our energy into building the programming game we've wanted to exist for years. The thing we're building is only peripherally connected to hiring.

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#103

Post by tptacek »

scott_s wrote: post #91

At this point, my mental model of what this will be is a hacking version of Eve Online. That is, an online persistent world where people can work with and against each other. But through hacking a market, not waging war. This implies that there will end up being a non-hacking meta game, which I think is inevitable when enough people start doing the same thing. Am I on the right track?

It isn't going to be the hacking version of Eve Online in chapter 1, but yes, that is e x a c t l y what we are shooting for.

The thesis statement behind the game is literally, "what if CTFs were more like MMORPGs?"

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#104

Post by [deleted] »

tom_mellior wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? That's not what she said. She pointed out that the stack pointer is a I/O register, which was in fact so weird that we did in fact argue about it (she was right, I was wrong). Why did she write about that? I don't know, perhaps because people who participate in Microcorruption are going to program AVR stack pointers? "Mansplanation"? Really? It feels like no matter what someone writes ---…

> What are you talking about? That's not what she said. She pointed out that the stack pointer is a I/O register, which was in fact so weird that we did in fact argue about it (she was right, I was wrong). Yes, that's what I'm talking about, and that is what she said: You argued about something that is a fact (and well-documented) and thus simply not up for argument. Previously I thought you were a group of experienc…

[deleted]

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

tomjen3 wrote: post #73
knite wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, THT! I was their Director of IT around 2007-2010. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Why would a developer work in such a place? I imagine you would be forced to be all professional yet always play second fiddle to the traders, no matter great your skills were. But then again I am probably the only one who is disappointed over this announcement - the game sounds really boring to me.

> Why would a developer work in such a place? I imagine you would be forced to be all professional yet always play second fiddle to the traders, no matter great your skills were.

Even if your imagination were correct, I'd expect "money" would be a factor. Not all developers are primarily concerned about maximizing workplace status.

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#106

Post by scott_s »

tptacek wrote: post #103
scott_s wrote: post #91

At this point, my mental model of what this will be is a hacking version of Eve Online. That is, an online persistent world where people can work with and against each other. But through hacking a market, not waging war. This implies that there will end up being a non-hacking meta game, which I think is inevitable when enough people start doing the same thing. Am I on the right track?

It isn't going to be the hacking version of Eve Online in chapter 1, but yes, that is e x a c t l y what we are shooting for. The thesis statement behind the game is literally, "what if CTFs were more like MMORPGs?"

Interesting. What are the thoughts of you and your partners on the collaboration aspects? That is, it is very likely that things like guilds (WoW) or corporations (Eve Online) will develop, even if they're not a concept inside the game. I have no first-hand experience with MMORPGs, but my understanding is that it's possible to spend all of one's time managing these organizations, and none actually "playing" the game. That is, for them, the game has become the organizational meta-game. (There's some famous Eve "player" who says he has not logged in for some length of time measured in years, despite being high-up in one of the largest corporations.)

What I'm getting at is the desired side-effect is for people to have something they use to show employers in the real world to say, "I am employable for doing this super hard technical work". But I can imagine that for some people, that part of the game would become the minority of it. What are your all thoughts on this? Maybe a way to show experience with technical project management? (I'm not being glib.)

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#107

Post by kasey_junk »

scott_s wrote: post #106
tptacek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't going to be the hacking version of Eve Online in chapter 1, but yes, that is e x a c t l y what we are shooting for. The thesis statement behind the game is literally, "what if CTFs were more like MMORPGs?"

Interesting. What are the thoughts of you and your partners on the collaboration aspects? That is, it is very likely that things like guilds (WoW) or corporations (Eve Online) will develop, even if they're not a concept inside the game. I have no first-hand experience with MMORPGs, but my understanding is that it's possible to spend all of one's time managing these organizations, and none actually "playing" the game.…

If you read Patrick's bio on their web page he explicitly likens managing an mmorpg gruop to management.

I suspect they would view the evolution of that sort of culture as hugely successful & the incentives are setup such that they capture and try to place those people who are leading those groups. CTO placement also pays out at a pretty good rate I imagine...

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#108

Post by tptacek »

tom_mellior wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? That's not what she said. She pointed out that the stack pointer is a I/O register, which was in fact so weird that we did in fact argue about it (she was right, I was wrong). Why did she write about that? I don't know, perhaps because people who participate in Microcorruption are going to program AVR stack pointers? "Mansplanation"? Really? It feels like no matter what someone writes ---…

> What are you talking about? That's not what she said. She pointed out that the stack pointer is a I/O register, which was in fact so weird that we did in fact argue about it (she was right, I was wrong). Yes, that's what I'm talking about, and that is what she said: You argued about something that is a fact (and well-documented) and thus simply not up for argument. Previously I thought you were a group of experienc…

That's an interesting point. My answer, in three parts:

1. Meat-loaf.

2. Beat-loaf.

3. I hate meat-loaf.

Re: Starfighter, Summer 2015

#110

Post by akavel »

volkadav wrote: post #88
akavel wrote: post #69

Hmmm, personally, I have rather mixed feelings about this. I'd really like to be excited, but so far, I'm not. (And, on a somewhat tangential note, also I'm fairly surprised not to see any voices similar to mine here in the comments; am I the only one? hard to believe; or maybe others like me just shrug and don't bother to write? sounds more probable, to me at least.) I tried to analyze my thoughts on that; I'll try…

There's a lot of interesting engineering that goes into finance. It's hard to get into the domain where milliseconds are of crucial importance and not involve some seriously hairy engineering. Finance, even aside from the practical engineering aspects, can be full of deliciously crunchy theory and mathematics. It isn't all fifty year old frat boys getting shithammered in tawdry NYC bars (though that part can be fun t…

As to the engineering in finance & ads, I fully understand that, but the issue for me is with the topic and goal, or how it's gonna be used. So, this argument doesn't really work for me.

As to the second part, about finding work, that's much more interesting for me as some food for thoughts. Thanks!

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